JDW forced to apologise to travellers for the second time in a month

The latest incident saw three people refused entry to the Tivoli in Cambridge in February following a nearby funeral.

It follows a case earlier this month where Wetherspoon’s was found guilty if discriminating against eight travellers at a north London pub back in 2011.

Following the latest verdict, JDW chairman Tim Martin said: “We apologise to the three claimants for the embarrassment and distress caused to them and have offered to pay damages to each of them as well as legal costs.

“There was no intention by the company to discriminate against these individuals.

“This is the second legal case involving Wetherspoon and the travelling community in the past month in which discrimination has been established. The first case, concerning the Coronet in north London, related to an incident in 2011 and the Tivoli incident occurred this February.

“There are the only two cases brought against the company by the travelling community for discrimination since Wetherspoon was founded in 1979.”

“We reiterate that there was no malice intended by the company in either case and Wetherspoon did not have a discriminatory motive.

“Our pubs serve more than two million customers each week and unfortunately errors by out staff do occur on occasion, notwithstanding our commitment to equal training of all customers and staff.

“We will be redoubling our efforts to ensure that we, as a company and our staff learn from these mistakes.”

The PMA’s legal specialist Poppleston Allen reminded operators that the age-old right of a licensee to refuse entry to whomever he or she wishes remains, but the reasons must not be unlawful.

Equality legislation makes it unlawful to refuse entry on the grounds of religion, race, sex, sexual orientation or disability. .